Happy Easter!

Hello and Happy Easter everyone! I'm just popping in to say that I hope your days were fun and you got to celebrate the holiday and weekend with people you love. I was lucky enough to head home to South Dakota over the weekend. I fit in a lot of time with friends and family, including seeing the movie Water For Elephants, having breakfast at my aunt's house on Saturday morning and a delicious lunch today at an aunt on the other side of my family's house. The younger kids had an Easter egg hunt and there were many jokes about an unfortunate incident having to do with a turkey going around. All in all it was a great little trip. It never seems like I have enough time when I go home, but I try to pack in as much as I can every weekend I do make it back!

I also have a fun surprise from the weekend - I got a new car! More information/pictures on that soon, but now it's time to sleep. The 5+ hour drive to get back to the cities always wears me out. Hope everyone has a great start to their Monday!

Last week's playlist.

A short mix of songs that helped me get through work in the early days of April. Maybe you'll find something you like!

You gotta swim.

I've been learning that I really enjoy swimming as a form of exercise. It makes me happy, protects my joints, and has helped my back quite a bit ever since my car accident. I like gliding through the water, and after enough laps, truly feel strong.

My favorite part is when I'm one of the only people in the pool. Last night was the perfect example. I happened to get there during a lull, and had the entire "leisure pool" to myself. I'm a wuss, so this was absolutely awesome. (As opposed to the lap pool, which is always colder.)

I was just getting to about halfway through my normal routine when a few more people showed up. Not a big deal, I'll move over a bit and we'll all have plenty of room.

Then an entire family came. And another one. All of a sudden it was kid hour; mind you, this was around 9:00pm on a Monday night. Don't kids need sleep?

I was still fine with this until a mother was putting a life jacket on her son. He kept saying "Mommy, I need to go potty!" Her solution to his problem was by scooping up her son and throwing him into the water.

I hadn't moved that fast the entire workout.

I'll brave the adult lap pool next time.

What have you been doing to stay in shape? Any new workouts I should try?

It's been a month.

I took an impromptu month away from blogging life. It all started with the fact that my computer was broken, and it took longer than two weeks to fix. Then it just felt good being able to be offline in the few hours I was at home. I'm planning two camps for high school students this summer and that has made work ramp up in the past month. I love it, I've just been busy!

Beginning last October, I found a church that I really enjoy attending every Sunday. This morning, the pastor said one thing particularly true: "Life is not for understanding and comprehending. Life is for living." I didn't really think about it this way until today, but this past month I've been enjoying ordinariness. Going out for happy hour, re-uniting with friends I hadn't seen in a year, baking for an entire day with one of my best friends, trying new restaurants, planning and hosting a party, grilling with my roommates, having impromptu movie and wine nights, painting my nails, going to brunch, eating fruit, going to a swanky event with a good friend, helping friends with video projects, acting like an adult, realize I'm not acting anymore, showing up.

Really, I've just been focusing on the relationships I have in real life. This has been fantastic, and reminded me why I love this place. I've built a wonderful, supportive community around me. I have a blessed life.